SNAP-1 is a British nanosatellite in

low Earth orbit A low Earth orbit (LEO) is an orbit around Earth with a period of 128 minutes or less (making at least 11.25 orbits per day) and an eccentricity less than 0.25. Most of the artificial objects in outer space are in LEO, with an altitude never m ...

.C Underwood, G Richardson, J Savignol
"In-orbit results from the SNAP-1 nanosatellite and its future potential"
Philosophical Transactions of The Royal Society, 2003P Fortescue, J Stark, G Swinerd, "Spacecraft Systems Engineering", Third Edition, Wiley - Section 18.7, pages 597-599 The satellite was built at the Surrey Space Centre by Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL) and members of the

University of Surrey The University of Surrey is a public research university in Guildford, Surrey, England. The university received its royal charter in 1966, along with a number of other institutions following recommendations in the Robbins Report. The institu ...

. It was launched on 28 June 2000 on board a

Kosmos-3M The Kosmos-3M (russian: Космос-3М meaning "''Cosmos''", GRAU index 11K65M) was a Russian space launch vehicle, member of the Kosmos rocket family. It was a liquid-fueled two-stage launch vehicle, first launched in 1967 and with over 42 ...

rocket from the

Plesetsk Cosmodrome Plesetsk Cosmodrome ( rus, Космодром «Плесецк», r=Kosmodrom "Plesetsk", p=kəsmɐˈdrom plʲɪˈsʲet͡sk) is a Russian spaceport located in Mirny, Arkhangelsk Oblast, about 800 km north of Moscow and approximately 200 ...

in northern Russia. It shared the launch with a Russian Nadezhda search and relay spacecraft and the Chinese Tsinghua-1 microsatellite.

Mission

The objectives of the SNAP-1 mission were to: * Develop and prove a modular

commercial off-the-shelf Commercial off-the-shelf or commercially available off-the-shelf (COTS) products are packaged or canned (ready-made) hardware or software, which are adapted aftermarket to the needs of the purchasing organization, rather than the commissioning of ...

(COTS) based nanosatellite bus. * Evaluate new manufacturing techniques and technologies. * Image the Tsinghua-1 microsatellite during its deployment (timed to occur a few seconds after the deployment of SNAP-1). * Demonstrate the systems required for future nanosatellite constellations. For example: three-axis attitude control,

Global Positioning System The Global Positioning System (GPS), originally Navstar GPS, is a satellite-based radionavigation system owned by the United States government and operated by the United States Space Force. It is one of the global navigation satellite ...

(GPS) based orbit determination, and orbital manoeuvres. * Depending on propellant availability, rendezvous with Tsinghua-1 and demonstrate formation flying. During deployment, SNAP-1 successfully imaged the Nadezhda and Tsinghua-1 satellites that accompanied it on the launch.R Lancaster
"An optical remote inspection system for the Surrey Nanosatellite Applications Program"
University of Surrey MSc thesis, 2001R Lancaster, C Underwood
"The SNAP-1 Machine Vision System"
14th AIAA / USU Conference on Small Satellites, 2000 Once in orbit, SNAP-1 achieved three axis attitude control,W H Steyn, Y Hashida
"In-Orbit Attitude Performance of the 3-Axis Stabilised SNAP-1 Nanosatellite"
15th AIAA / USU Conference on Small Satellites, 2001 then demonstrated its orbital maintenance capability using its butane cold gas propulsion system.D Gibbon, C Underwood
"Low Cost Butane Propulsion Systems for Small Spacecraft"
15th AIAA / USU Conference on Small Satellites, 2001

Architecture

The SNAP-1 satellite contained the following modules: * Power System *

VHF Very high frequency (VHF) is the ITU designation for the range of radio frequency electromagnetic waves (radio waves) from 30 to 300 megahertz (MHz), with corresponding wavelengths of ten meters to one meter. Frequencies immediately below VHF ...

Receiver *

S-band The S band is a designation by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) for a part of the microwave radio band, band of the electromagnetic spectrum covering frequency, frequencies from 2 to 4 gigahertz (GHz). Thus it c ...

TransmitterZ Wahl, K Walker, J Ward
"Modular and Reusable Miniature Subsystems for Small Satellites: An Example Describing Surrey’s Nanosatellite S-Band Downlink"
14th AIAA / USU Conference on Small Satellites, 2000 * Attitude and Orbit Control System (AOCS) * Cold-Gas Propulsion (CGP) System * On-Board Computer (OBC) *

spread-spectrum communications payload *

UHF Ultra high frequency (UHF) is the ITU designation for radio frequencies in the range between 300 megahertz (MHz) and 3 gigahertz (GHz), also known as the decimetre band as the wavelengths range from one meter to one tenth of a meter (on ...

inter-satellite link * Machine Vision System (MVS)

References

{{Orbital launches in 2000 University of Surrey Satellites orbiting Earth Satellites of the United Kingdom Spacecraft launched in 2000